The (Un)Usual Suspect

Early on a sunny Saturday afternoon, Benicio Del Toro angles into the lobby of Manhattan's Mercer Hotel, scans the deluxe surroundings, takes a seat and orders breakfast ("I want three fried eggs and some sliced tomatoes, Canadian bacon — some of that — and do you have a combination of carrot juice and orange juice?"), pokes at the spotless green trucker cap balanced on his sizable head, hems and haws, says a few passing words about his movie Che, mumbles like he's still playing Fred Fenster, from The Usual Suspects, stares off blankly, bares his teeth, pulls on his chin and then actually manages to shed some light on himself. "Have I ever been suicidal?" he says. "Not long enough. Not long enough. But there has been the question, 'To be or not to be?' Hey, I've thought about it. Would I go through with it? No. But feeling alone, feeling like a failure, feeling like there's no one out there. I've had those feelings, though they don't last."

So often this kind of introspection has been missing from the Benny files. So often he has shown up as Benny the Puerto Rican ne'er-do-well scoundrel, ragged and beat-looking, like probably the guy wouldn't think twice before doing Scarlett Johansson against an elevator wall after an awards show, urgently, as has been rumored — later denials from her notwithstanding. That Benny chain-smokes. He's got deep, sorrowful bags under his eyes. He's a real bamboozler and makes big-name writers from big-name magazines write barfable lines like "The Brando in him is gleaming tonight, and don't he know it, boy?" And then that Benny sallies forth, hidden behind a fog of mannerisms, tics and oddball phraseologies.

Even today, it sometimes seems like he's headed in that direction. He starts off breezily enough, if only because the topic is Che. Directed by his friend Steven Soderbergh, the movie tells the story of beret-wearing guerrilla Ernesto "Che" Guevara, runs four hours and 17 minutes and delivers Del Toro's greatest (or at least longest) performance ever. It won him the best-actor award at Cannes, with Oscar buzz starting immediately thereafter. But about lots of other things, he's decidedly skittish. It was recently reported in the New York Post that after Che screened at the Toronto Film Festival, Del Toro and Soderbergh spent the rest of the night partying at a local strip club. "By 12:30, Benicio and Steven had 12 girls [visit] the VIP room," said one apparent witness. "The dancers were pouring 360 Vodka shots in their mouths while giving them the lap dances." Fantastic, wonderful, who could blame a single guy like him? But according to Del Toro, he hardly even drinks, never mind the rest of it. "I drink, but I'm not a drinker," he says with a wave of his hand. "I can and sometimes do go a month without drinking if I want to."

And for a while, that's just how it goes.